Flesh and Fire (3 page)

The dryness in his chest moved up into his throat, and there wasn’t enough spit in his entire body to keep his tongue from swelling from fear. His bowels were shivering, and his skin felt cold despite the sun’s harvest warmth.

“Leave me to do the judging,” the Master said, and although it was spoken mildly, the overseer bowed his shaved head to accept the rebuke. The Master was not cruel; in fact, he rarely entered the slaves’ world at all, save when he walked the fields to inspect the crop, but he was the spell caster, the winemaker, the master of his fields, and not even a Berengian prince might challenge him without risk. He was the one who bought them from the slavers and they lived—and died—as his fortunes rose or fell. The overseer made sure they knew that—once bought, the price for slacking off was death, because the Master would not keep a lazy slave, and no Vineart wanted a slave trained by another.

“Wait,” the Master said suddenly, holding up his hand, and every breathing soul froze. “Let me see a sampling from that crush.”

“You, boy!” the overseer called, and the boy started before realizing the call was directed to another. The overseer never called them by name, although he knew them all by sight. “Bring the Master a sampling!”

The slave who had been waiting, crouched off to the side, for just such an order was a tiny thing barely a decade old, and without enough brains to be afraid. It bent a bare knee in obedience, and then ran to fetch the spoon off the wall of the vintnery. The spoon was crafted of purest silver, flat at the bottom with deep sides, and a long handle, and only the Vineart was allowed to touch it to his lips. The slave child wiped its pale hand on its smock, lifted the spoon off the hook with reverence, and then climbed up on a makeshift ladder of two planks set on bricks in order to be able to reach into the vat.

The boy held his breath, watching out of the corner of his eye. The vat, a great wooden barrel, was twice as high and four times as wide as the child, and dipping required perching on the rim and hanging on with one hand. The slave was tiny; there was no reason for the sight of it leaning against the side to fill the boy with a worse fear than even the Master’s presence. And yet, a sense of dread filled him as he watched. Moving carefully, the slave child leaned forward and dipped the tasting spoon into the vat of flesh and juice, scooping out a bare mouthful into the silver depression. The dipper wobbled, and the slave child grabbed at the side.

“Sin Washer save us!” a voice cried out, quietly terrified.

The ground underneath was not even, or perhaps the slaves had not cleared the platform properly when the vat was wheeled into place for this harvest, or it might have been merest chance, or the silent gods’ ill-wishing that caused the weight of the slave child to tip over the huge wooden cask; it teetered slowly before crashing down with a terrifying, sloshing noise.

“Right it! Right it, damn you!” The overseer strode forward, his short, thick crop slashing out at bodies he deemed not moving quickly enough. “You, and you! Move faster!” The slaves were throwing themselves under the side of the vat, using their bodies in vain to move it back into an upright position. Several others had grabbed containers and were trying to scoop the crushed pulp up off the ground before the valuable liquid soaked into the dry-packed dirt and disappeared.

In the chaos, only two forms stood still. One was the Vineart, his lean form aloof and above the fuss, even as the precious liquid was lost.

The other was the boy, feeling a light spray of moisture mist against his face and neck.

He licked his lips and spat instinctively, terrified that someone might have seen him possibly drink, however unintentionally. Yet he did not race to help save the spilled crush, even as a tingle of it sat on his lips, coated his tongue. He stood off to the side, his damp mouth open as though to speak, his body completely still, his dark gaze riveted on the scene, and did not move.

He
couldn’t
move, not to save his own worthless life. His lungs could barely take in air, and the prickling in his legs was forgotten under the onslaught of sensations in his nose and throat. He should be panicking, but his thoughts were oddly calm, focusing on one single fact: there was something missing here, something that should be happening, and wasn’t. It made no sense, and yet it
was
. He knew it, as well as he knew the feel of his own skin. Where others were panicking, he felt the desire to laugh.

The overseer noted him standing there like a wooden dolt, and jolted forward, his thickly muscled arm reaching out to grab him, shove him into useful work. The boy felt those fingers start to close on his upper arm, but the Master snapped his fingers and, as though yanked by a chain, the overseer backed off, glaring at the useless slave, but restrained.

The Vineart studied the boy, his eyes hooded and his expression thoughtful, then turned back to watch the attempted cleanup.

The boy barely noticed any of this, other than relief when the overseer backed off. He was too caught up in the attack on his senses, and the odd feel of something missing, to worry about his own safety.

Finally, the vat was righted, and the salvaged mustus returned to the container. It had been no more than a span of moments, but more than half of the liquid was lost forever, soaked into the dirt, the pulp and skins ruined beyond reclamation. The smell hung, tempting and damning, in the afternoon air.

Filled with a terrible rage that colored his face near-blue, the overseer grabbed the offending slave child by the ear and threw it down on its knees before the Master.

“Lord Malech, this worthless piece of shit awaits your judgment.”

All of the slaves stopped once again, and watched.

The Vineart stared down at the slave, his long, tapered fingers stroking the fabric of his trousers thoughtfully. The boy, still frozen, staring at the now-righted vat, found his attention drawn away by that small movement. In style, the Master’s clothing was not so much different from those of the slaves he owned; pants and a sleeveless tunic. Unlike their cheap, mud-colored garments, however, his were made of fine-woven cloth in a richly dyed crimson, the color of a sunrise, setting off his olive-toned skin. A heavy leather belt was wrapped twice around his hips, buckled with a metal clasp, with two leather bags and a smaller, short-handled version of the silver spoon hanging from it. He wore sturdy low-heeled leather boots on his feet, unlike even the overseer’s bare and dirty toes.

“Kill it,” the Master said.

No voice protested, not even the slave child; its fate had been sealed the moment the barrel was overturned. To waste, or cause waste. . .The crime was clear, and the punishment well established. The overseer nodded and drew back his whip, bringing it down on the back of the slave’s neck with enough force to break it instantly.

The sound of the crack carried into the air, and—unlike the smell of the crushed grapes—dissipated there. The body collapsed, crumpled into something no longer human. Just meat.

Someone let out a long, shuddering sigh, and a sob was quickly muffled.

“Enough!” The overseer turned and glared at the remaining slaves “You, toss it into the pit, bury it with the rest of the refuse. The rest of you, back to work! The harvest will not happen on its own!”

There was a rustle of movement as all the slaves rushed to obey his orders, and then Vineart Malech raised a hand once again, a single ring glinting silver on his index finger. Every figure stopped cold, including the overseer. “That one.”

All eyes turned to follow the Master’s hand.

The boy’s heart shriveled and dropped all the way down between his legs when he realized that finger was pointing at him.

“Bring it here,” the Vineart continued.

The boy closed his eyes in resignation. He was dead. The Master was never wrong, and the Master never took note but to order death. He clasped his hands together and bent his upper body down, his gaze now on the ground as was appropriate for a slave in disgrace, but otherwise the boy showed no fear. How could one already dead, fear?

The overseer wrapped a hand around the boy’s forearm, but he didn’t need to drag the slave; he went calmly, almost willingly. There was no purpose to resisting. When he reached the Master’s feet, he bent farther into the dirt, placing his forehead on the ground in full surrender.

In his abject pose, he could not see what happened around him. Vineart Malech looked down at him, then flicked his fingers at the overseer, indicating that the rest of the slaves were to be sent on their way. He could hear most of them scurry off, trying to become invisible so that whatever was about to happen would pass them by. A few tried to linger, but a crack of the overseer’s stick made them rethink their curiosity.

“You.”

“Master.” The boy’s voice had just broken a few weeks before, and he was embarrassed at the way it wavered on the first syllable, and then steadied in a firm tenor. “Yours is the hand and the will.” The ritual words came to him, as the slavers had taught him the first night, reinforcing the lesson with beatings. Once his voice was back under control, the words were flat, neither terrified nor toadying, but merely expressing a response to a query. He had perfected that tone in the years since the slavers had sold him to the House of Malech, but until now he had used it only in response to the overseer, so he did not know if he had it right.

The Vineart apparently found nothing objectionable in the tone or the words, only his action—or lack thereof. “You did nothing to aid the spill.”

“No, Master.” He saw no reason to lie; the Master had seen him do nothing. He could hear the overseer lifting his stick again, prepared to beat him for his answer, but the Master stayed the blow.

“Why?”

The boy was silent, his body stiffening as though preparing for the inevitable blows to fall. Where a certain death had not shaken him, the question did. What could he answer? How did you speak excuses when you were dead?

“Why, boy?”

The boy bowed his head even lower, but had no answer.

The first blow that landed hit his backside, hard enough to shake his slender body, but still he did not speak.

The second blow moved up to the ribs, hitting under the thin top, and the stick came away bloody. He felt the blood dripping, but did not believe it. Could you still bleed when you were dead? The urge to laugh bubbled up again, and he wondered if he had gone mad.

“Boy?” The Vineart’s voice had changed, from cool to curious, as though the slave’s resistance had truly piqued his interest. “Why?”

“Master. I do not know why.”

The third blow was directly between his shoulder blades and sent the slave sprawling flat on the ground. His body shook, but he did not move from the position, not even to lift his face out of the dirt.

They posed there, the three of them, in a motionless tableau, even as the slaves worked around them, casting frightened yet curious glances over their shoulders. He could practically hear their thoughts: The slave should have been dead by now, and yet wasn’t. The Master was not one to hesitate to punish any infraction, any insolence or challenge. Why was the boy slave yet breathing?

Any change in routine was terrifying, even if it involved less violence rather than more. They wanted him dead, to make things right again. He understood. He felt the same.

“You do not know why,” the Master said. It was a statement of fact, and so the boy did not respond.

“Do you have a name, boy?”

The question made no sense. Slaves did not have names, not ones the Master would know. Even the overseer was known only by his position, not the name he had arrived with. Nicknames, like Singer, Old Tree, or Fishtail, those were common. A name implied value. A name indicated worth.

It was a question, one asked of him directly. He had to answer it, somehow. The boy lifted his head from the dirt, expecting at any moment to feel another blow, this time on his neck, breaking it.

“Boy?” The Master’s patience was clearly wearing thin.

The words seemed to come as though not from his own mouth but from a long distance away, lost and unexpectedly reclaimed. There had been a name once, back when he had a mother and father, and a home that did not smell of sea breeze and grapes, but horse and cold, snow and fire smoke.

“Jerzy, Master.” He swallowed, having to force the name out after years of disuse and silence. “My name is Jerzy.”

The Vineart nodded, as though this confirmed something he had expected. “What did you feel, Jerzy? When the crush spilled?”

What did he feel? The question again made no sense. “Nothing, Master.”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing, Master.” He dropped back down to the ground, awaiting his punishment. What answer had the Master wanted?

“Ah. No tingle? No desire? No need to run your fingers through the liquid, to feel it touch your skin?” The words were like hooks, trying to pull something out of him.

“I. . .Master, I. . .there is something wrong with it, Master.” The words spilled out of him before he even knew what he was going to say.
Idiot,
he thought again, and braced himself for the next blow, expecting it, at last, to be the deadly stroke.

The Vineart’s expression didn’t change, but he nodded once again, as though finally satisfied.

“Come with me.
Now,
Jerzy.”

The Vineart turned and walked away, toward the taller stone building behind the vintnery that housed the Master’s living quarters. The House of Malech. Forbidden territory to even approach, for a slave. The overseer aimed a kick at the slave in order to get him moving, but the boy rolled and was on his feet, nimbly avoiding the blow. The paralysis that had held him earlier was gone, and his entire body felt alive again. He was alive. He wanted, very much, to remain that way.

His face still averted, his shoulders hunched from years of habit, the slave followed his master away from the harvest and everything that had, until then, been his life.

The overseer’s whipstick cracked in the air behind them, and his low growl sounded over it: the boy flinched, even though it was not aimed at him. “Back to work, you worthless bits of flesh! The sun’s still up and there’s fruit to be taken in! Stop wasting the Master’s time!”